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I have a vague impression I posted about this a while ago, but couldn't find the thread.
My dad replaced his car with a newer one - not because it was getting old, but because the dealer he bought it from offered him a decent enough amount of money for the year-old one he traded it in for. Keeping up to date with the current year-model made sense.
The car maker has an Android app that gives you access to a bunch of stats and functions, like remotely locking/unlocking the doors, turning on the headlights, opening the trunk, honking the horn, starting the engine, showing its current location on a map, etc.
My dad, not being a smartphone guy, just traded in the car, but didn't reconfigure anything in the car or in the phone app when he did so. I pointed out a few weeks ago that neither did the dealer, or the guy who bought the 'old' car, so his phone was still capable of reporting back how much gas was left in the tank, unlocking the doors, and, well, determining exactly where the new owner lives, or works, or where he happens to be at any moment. Which can lead to nasty stuff if you ask me.
Try as I might, I couldn't even find a place in the app where I could register a new vehicle - let alone removing the old one. I'm not exactly a luddite; I've been earning a living as a software developer for nearly 30 years, and if I can't find what should be a basic option...someone's seriously dropped the ball.
Still, in spite of this, you'd think a dealer selling a used car would do his best to delete any of the previous owner's data, unlink the app from the vehicle, etc...whatever's necessary. But apparently, no. I wouldn't be surprised if the new owner could drive by, and open my dad's garage door as he had it programmed in.
Worse scenario: If the new owner parks it in his garage, connected to his house, one could remotely start the engine every half hour and asphyxiate someone overnight.
It annoys me to no end, knowing these possibilities, that dealers could be so careless. This isn't even a hack, it's working as designed.
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Last time I checked in a rental car, I got hassled to get out of the car.
I was poking around the menus trying to find out where to make it forget my phone.
When I found it, there were details of several other people's phones in there too.
Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012
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Rental, or lease?
I have no idea why anyone would take the time to pair his phone with a rental car.
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So you can use Car Play and take hands-free phone calls. It's the first thing I do, especially when I'm in an unfamiliar city. And of course the last thing I do is remove my phone. The rental place can just wait: I'm not handing over the car till all my stuff - including my info - is out of the car.
cheers
Chris Maunder
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Hands-free or not, I'm not picking up the phone when I'm driving. I won't even glance at it at a red light.
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That's the point: by connecting the phone to the car I can answer via the steering wheel button or hitting the big green circle on the centre display. No more distraction than changing the radio station. Actually less distraction because I can never find a decent station so end up trying to work out where the 'off' button is.
cheers
Chris Maunder
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Some drives are too long for no tunes, too bereft of radio signal for AM/FM, and don't have XM.
Without pairing to stream something besides road noise, I'd be asleep in a cactus beside a flipped rental.
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dandy72 wrote: dealer selling a used car
dandy72 wrote: would do his best
C'mon, you know better than to think a used car dealer would have any integrity at all.
The difficult we do right away...
...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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Well it wasn't a "used car dealer" in the way most people think about, it's a dealer that happened to buy back my dad's year-old car for a trade-up.
But I know what you mean by "used car dealer" and their reputation. I have an uncle who ran a tiny independent dealership for decades. Honestly they don't all deserve the reputation they're given.
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dandy72 wrote: someone's seriously dropped the ball.
Write your congressman to have them pass a law?
dandy72 wrote: so his phone was still capable of reporting back how much gas was left in the tank, unlocking the doors
I probably do not want my phone to unlock the doors. I absolutely do not want it telling me about the gas. Car should have a gauge for that.
So no reason for me to install an app. But I might stir myself to figure out how to disable any smarts like that completely on a new car that I owned.
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jschell wrote: no reason for me to install an app. But I might stir myself to figure out how to disable any smarts like that completely on a new car that I owned.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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jschell wrote: I probably do not want my phone to unlock the doors. I absolutely do not want it telling me about the gas. Car should have a gauge for that.
And they do.
And as I said, my dad's not a smartphone guy. But when he heard the app could give him these readouts and make these functions available to him, he insisted I install it on his phone for him, despite me pointing out these apps are typically BS you only use once or twice, then never look at again. And as it turned out, the app wasn't compatible with the LG phone he had at the time, and he actually replaced it with some Samsung just to get the app going.
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dandy72 wrote: and he actually replaced it with some Samsung just to get the app going.
So he was really excited about it.
Did he use it after the initial thrill?
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I'd have to ask him. Probably not very often.
Having a smartphone is still a new thing for him. At least he still behaves that way. After 4+ years.
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Problem is, the app requires an email address, and I'm betting the rest of my dad's profile is linked to it, so if I enter it after reinstalling (so he can manage his newer car) the data will still be there. But, worth a try...
(and if that's the solution, then that's still bad design)
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Your father's old car was presumably sold to him as "the last car he'll ever need to buy". If he decided otherwise, that's not the dealer's fault. /s
Seriously, some designer(s) definitely dropped the ball in the design of both the Android software and the car's software.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Daniel Pfeffer wrote: Your father's old car was presumably sold to him as "the last car he'll ever need to buy".
My dad was a mechanic for a new car dealer for over 40 years, he knows all the types of salesguys that get hired (and fired). If one tried to sell him a car as such, he would've been made very well aware his BS wasn't gonna fly with him.
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Car manufacturers should perhaps install a big Red button near the dashboard, saying
DISABLE ALL MOBILE CONTROLS TO THIS CAR. (Till i manually turn them on via hardware).
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dandy72 wrote: It annoys me to no end, knowing these possibilities, that dealers could be so careless.
It's likely most dealer don't even know this, so it's not carelessness, it's ignorance.
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I've seen (without seeking them out) countless articles and TV shows where these sorts of things are discussed and demonstrated; cars have had remote features for many years now--these guys are aware of what's going on in the industry.
So at this point in time, if dealers aren't aware of this, it's not ignorance, I insist it is outright carelessness.
modified 16-Feb-24 9:30am.
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dandy72 wrote: if dealers aren't aware of this
Perhaps 'dealer' singular rather than plural?
Or even maybe there is no way, on an older car, to do anything about it?
Googling suggests that it is possible to do a factory reset on at least some cars which support pairing. Seems like something more reputable dealers would probably do.
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jschell wrote: Or even maybe there is no way, on an older car, to do anything about it?
We're talking about 2022 vs 2023.
jschell wrote: Seems like something more reputable dealers would probably do.
...if you ask them the right salesguy who happens to know anything at all about the products he's selling.
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dandy72 wrote: if you ask them the right salesguy
I know reputable dealers look over used cars and even make some repairs. So process of doing that would be to do a reset.
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... that's when I watch anything, which is pretty much only when i am eating, because my anxiety issues preclude any drama or "cringe humor".
Anyway, on the show Wheeler Dealers, Elvis the mechanic was rechipping a little Fiat sports car, and the remap chip was an ST. I use STs professionally. Not for remapping ECU fuel/air tables but still, I thought it was neat.
I'm interested in metal fab, hot rodding (or otherwise voiding a warranty), and gonzo engineering so it's fun to see a little bit of that crossover into what I do.
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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